Beyond The Cube: How an Ancient Sufi Game Taught Me to Map My Subconscious

Back in the 1990s, during the height of high school coffeehouse culture, I discovered a cult-classic book that completely changed how I look at my inner world: The Cube: Keep the Secret by Annie Gottlieb and Slobodan Pesic.

The book introduced me to an ancient Sufi interactive visualization game. You imagine a simple desert scene with five elements, and the way your mind naturally paints those objects acts as a psychological mirror, a "soulprint" of exactly where your spirit is sitting at that moment in time.

For decades, I've remained absolutely fascinated by it. The wildest part? Even when you know exactly what the symbols mean, your subconscious still sneaks past your guard. You can't outsmart it. Every time I play, my mind hands me unexpected details that reveal my state of mind. (Internal weather, as AI would say 😂)

Back in June, I decided to expand the universe of The Cube by creating two entirely new interactive landscapes with different symbols to see how my mind adapts.

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🛑 STOP! Spoiler Alert Ahead!!!!

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To honor the ultimate rule of the game, do not read any further if you want to try this yourself! Once you know what the symbols mean, your conscious ego will take over and try to make your scene look "good," destroying the pure magic of the projection.

Take a pen and paper right now. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and visualize the following two environments. Write down or sketch what you see before scrolling down.

Test 1: The Clearing

Imagine you are standing in a timeless, open forest clearing. Visualize these five elements:

1. A Lantern sitting somewhere in the clearing. What does it look like? How does it light up?

2. The Trees surrounding the clearing. What kind are they? How close are they?

3. A Fire Ring or Hearth. Describe the fire. Is it contained? How is it burning?

4. A River or Stream passing through. What is the water doing? How do you interact with it?

5. A Gate on the edge of the clearing. What is it made of? Is it open or closed?

Test 2: The Skyline

Here is another test I ran with Gemini - I wanted to try a city view. As most of you know, I am not a city girl at all so I really wanted to see what we could draw out of it.

Imagine you are standing on a high rooftop looking out over a sprawling city skyline. Visualize these five elements:

1. The Building you are standing on. What is the architecture? What do the windows look like?

2. The City Lights or Streets below you. What is the layout? How bright are they?

3. A Rooftop Garden or Balcony Cafe connected to your building. What is the vibe?

4. The Transit System (subway, buses, or highway) moving through the city. What is the flow?

5. A Construction Zone somewhere in your view. What is happening there?

The Secret Decoded: What the Symbols Mean

Before we look at my actual drawings, here is the psychological key for these two new tests:

The Lantern / The Building = The Self / Ego (Your core identity and self-awareness).

The Trees / The City Lights = Family and Friends (Your social circle, community, and boundaries).

The Hearth / The Rooftop Garden = Romantic Relationships (How you experience intimacy and partnership).

The River / The Transit System = Work and Career (Your productivity, momentum, and professional flow).

The Gate / The Construction Zone = Challenges & Problem-Solving (How you perceive and navigate life's obstacles).

Bringing the Subconscious to Paper: My Landscapes

I decided to sit down and sketch my exact visualizations for both tests. When you jump from words to paper, your subconscious adds incredible artistic accents that reveal even deeper layers of your mindset.

Landscape 1: The Clearing

Here is my sketch of The Clearing:

When I looked at my drawing, I realized my mind had created a highly organized, layered psychological map divided into distinct sections:

The Lantern (The Self): It stands right in the center, a structured, stable anchor amidst the color.

The Trees (Community): I originally envisioned sturdy hardwoods, but my hands drew whimsical, curling, loopy branches. It reminded me that while I value reliability in my inner circle, I deeply crave and celebrate their whimsy, playfulness, and creativity.

The Hearth (Romance): Drawn as a perfectly contained circle of stones with a steady, lasting bed of coals sitting right at the edge of my personal safe zone. It represents a relationship built to last: quiet, warm, and deeply intentional.

The River (Career): Instead of a continuous flowing stream, my subconscious drew four completely separate, abstract islands cutting across the middle of the page. It perfectly mirrors my current reality: I don't see my career as one continuous path right now, but rather as distinct, individual projects and creative eras that I consciously navigate between.

The Gate (Challenges): Tucked away on the extreme left periphery on its own tiny island. It's delicate and manageable, showing that I successfully keep conflict out of the center of my peace.

Landscape 2: The Skyline

Now, I am not a city person at all. I am total country mouse! So, when I dropped my mind into The Skyline, it was a fascinating exercise to see how my brain adapted to find comfort:

Instead of a cold, concrete urban jungle, my subconscious completely subverted the city environment and forced it to become a living, breathing ecosystem:

The Building (The Self): Shaped like a chunky version of the Pittsburgh Gulf Tower, split right down the center of the page. It changes colors to show its mood, surrounded by vibrant pinks and greens. It's a solid, immovable pillar of stability that isn't afraid to broadcast its true colors.

The Street Lights (Community): Instead of sterile metal poles, my brain drew them as a cross between vintage streetlamps and curly trees, illuminating a cozy, safe path right to my doorstep.

The Rooftop Garden (Romance): Tucked away in the upper left corner like a protective sanctuary, complete with string lights and a festive, rustic wedding vibe, a private space where the outside world can't intrude.

The Transit System (Career): I visualized a nostalgic, '80s-style red and blue bus. But look at the drawing! My brain literally planted a flower garden right on top of the roof of the bus. My career isn't just a vehicle for movement; it is something actively growing and nurturing life.

The Construction Zone (Challenges): There are orange barrels around a pothole, accompanied by a "Detour" sign. If you follow the arrow, it points directly into a series of looping, connected, cloud-like paths that wander past a giant spiral sun and back down to a field of flowers. My mind literally views obstacles as scenic routes for creative problem-solving.

The Common Thread

When you look at both drawings side-by-side, the structural continuity is stunning. Whether facing a quiet forest or an unfamiliar city skyline, my mind insisted on creating structural boundaries, practical safety, a deep connection to nature, and plenty of vibrant, whimsical color.

That is the beauty of projective games like The Cube. They prove that we don't have to let our environments dictate our stress levels. Instead, we have the power to force our environments to adapt to our inner peace.

Now, it's your turn! What did your Clearing or Skyline look like? Did your subconscious sneak anything unexpected onto your paper? Share your symbols and sketches in the comments below! Or email me: hello@chellestein.com.

Note: we’re working on installing fast comments so you’ll be able to comment but it’s hard to implement and I need to use ai because my 25 yrs of web development experience is not enough to make it possible for you lol 😂